Sediment Fingerprinting for Sources and Transport Pathways in the Root River, Southeastern Minnesota

Sediment Fingerprinting for Sources and Transport Pathways in the Root River, southeastern Minnesota The goal of this project is to use long- and short-lived geochemical tracers to track sediment sources in the Root River watershed to test the hypotheses that a) the erosional history of the Root River watershed is highly variable, b) that a large amount of previously eroded sediment remains within the watershed as readily erodible legacy sediment, and lastly, c) that the dominant source of sediment to the Root River is this (non-field) legacy sediment currently being derived from floodplains and streambanks. This report describes work conducted during the period of July – December 2011, in accordance to the timeline delineated in the contract and fulfills the report requirements incumbent on Utah State University and PI Patrick Belmont. During this timeframe we have conducted field work and GIS analyses, processed samples and received some results, and made several presentations. Samples have been sent out on time, according to the timeline delineated in our original proposal, but both of the laboratories responsible for processing the samples have been slow to complete analyses. However, we have contacted both labs and expect results to be completed before completion of the project on March 31, 2012.